Ryders versus The Antagonist
by KeJae
Summary: What if nearly everyone is more than they seem and the story you think you know is only a part of a greater picture? Read to see the events you think you know and the secrets behind them. Warning: Later chapters do have general (not detailed) references to child harm as the trigger for many of the events in the story. (Why the Ryders separated to protect the children, ECT).
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

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Disclaimer:

They say that "there is nothing new under the sun" and this story is of no exception. This is just my particular sandcastle built with other people's sand in the online sandbox of fanfiction.

The idea has rolled around in my head for a while now (years?) so I don't know where everything came from. General inspiration is obviously Chuck and White Collar with a few recognizable inspirations from fanfiction, MacGyver, Sherlock Holmes (the books), Sue Thomas FBI, and some random google searches to set up information.

Thank you:

A thank you to Quinis for requesting for me to write my idea down in the first place and encouraging me to keep going. Also, for being a person to talk to for questions on the process, bouncing ideas of off to gain direction, providing questions which led me to coming up with answers to fill in the plot, and for sharing and allowing me to use a few irresistible ideas.

Also, thank you to my family, and friend who read this story providing critiques, opinions, and some editing.

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Things all started with the антагонист or for simplicities sake the Antagonist. They are a criminal empire who seek to rule the underground as a faceless shadow lurking behind the fear and corruption they spread. Four generations ago a small task force of intelligent law men were put together to find the reasons behind the growing crime rate in the New York area. During their investigations this task force accidentally stumbled into the Antagonist's web discovering their existence behind the veil and the war for justice versus dominion began.

These two groups eventually became known as the families, or the lineage of those law men fighting for justice, and the Antagonists, or the lineage of those who fight for dominion via crime. The battle ground ranges all over the world through any field imaginable. Combatants on the family's side tend to range through military service, consulting, and working for agencies such as the CIA, NSA, FBI, and DEA. Even civilians not directly involved with the work often end up assisting in some form or another. Their personal skills tend to include music, dancing, art, medicine, athletics, academics, and engineering (particularly computers). They excel in their areas of choice being known for keen intelligence, quick reflexes, good decision making, strong leader ship, and experience all starting at a disheartening young age. On the other hand, the Antagonists are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure that their control remains, while endeavoring to expand beyond their current realm. They have been known to have persons involved with such organizations as Fulcrum/Ring, Volkoff Industries, and many other well-known criminal endeavors. Each of the persons involved can be compared to a man known as Matthew Keller, and remembered to be ruthless, determined, and eerily intelligent.

Going head to head, these two would be the makings of a modern version for "Clash of the Titans." Alas, for the better, or for the worse they instead dance around each other in a long and complicated game of chess. A key piece is something the families created when a young man, named Steven Ryder (aka Steven Bartowski/Orion), came up with the idea for the Intersect. For the families, this super computer was the hope for the future. It could be used to store massive amounts of data, compute the information matching details the mind didn't connect, as well as be uploaded into the secure location of a trusted agent's brain for easy field use. The goal was based around the general idea that information and preparedness would out do the devious powers of the Antagonist.

Like all plans tend to go, there were unintended consequences. With the first run Orion accidentally turned his best friend Hartley into the criminal mastermind Alexei Volkoff himself, basically changing the lamb into the lion. Initially, this was intentional as Hartley the docile scientist was needed for a joint operation between the CIA and MI6 where the main role was, Volkoff, the criminal mastermind and the expected duration was only a few months. It didn't take long for it to be realized that somehow the Intersect had changed him and under its influence, he really became Volkoff. Upon this discovery two sectors of the Antagonist began seeking to gain their own versions of the Intersect. They used Fulcrum/Ring to go after the means of information and computing abilities, while those monitoring Volkoff industries sought to better understand how to use the Intersect to alter people by manipulating the mind. As it is known, Operation Bartowski was vital in stopping Fulcrum/Ring from succeeding, but unbeknownst to them, they were too late to stop the efforts within Volkoff.

Years prior, when Chuck was little more than a toddler, he was victim to the sector of the Antagonist who sought to change people. The Детский плечо, or leverage for their tendency to take people away and using them as hostages, succeeded in abducting him and giving him a partial run through of their Intersect. This changed him so that he was afraid of needles and heights, which for a kid who had planned to be a doctor and fly planes, that was a big difference. It was intended to alter the little guy so that he believed he was one of the Antagonists, but his parents managed to rescue him first. In order to prevent another attempt they started a trend in the families by disappearing, moving to California, and creating identities for the normal Bartowski family.

While they were lucky enough to get Chuck back relatively unharmed, Steven's older brother Ryan wasn't so lucky. His son Ryan Peter, or Peter, was abducted and put through the Intersect successfully. The Antagonists set him up with handlers who raised him as their son Peter Burke so that he no longer knew who he really was. Why didn't the families pull another rescue and simply remove the Intersect? Because, the handlers had two strengths. If attempts to rescue were made Peter would fight to avoid abduction (since that is what it would appear to be to him), and if rescue was successful the handlers could simply use an implanted chip to kill him no matter the distance.

Peter was not the only successful alteration effort of this kind. Another was his younger cousin William Cade Ryder, the son of Steven's twin brother Nicholas. While Peter was an only child, Will most definitely was not. He had his eldest brother Joseph Cole, followed by his uniquely identical quadruplet brothers Nicholas Neal, Alexander Bryce, Zachary Levi, himself, and eventually a younger set of twin sisters Moriah Renée and Mary Lynn. Finally, Will's cousin Elizabeth Anne Brennan, Mary Bartowski's older sister Rachel's daughter, was also abducted. Ironically, El grew up to marry her cousin's cousin Peter Burke. With these three held as leverage against them it was impossible for the families to triumph without losses they could not risk.

With the Antagonist targeting their strikes at the children more and more, the families all went their separate ways, changed names, and became new people disappearing into the masses for a while. Creating new identities gave the parents of the children who had been taken, or lost ones, the opportunity to change their appearance and find ways to watch over their children while endeavoring not to endanger them by getting to close. Still, not knowing where the others had gone, or who they had become made for strange coincidences and tragic consequences in later years.

As time does, it passes. Things began to change with the next generation coming of age to officially join the battle as agents and soldiers in combat. These young men and women had watched family being taken away, suffered the consequences of being victims to the Antagonist's cruel techniques, and learned skills of survival and disguise to become whoever they needed to be in order to remain undetected. Being the name sake of the original task force leaders, it only seemed natural, that Nicholas Neal became the leader of this new generation. Despite being at the younger end of the crew he was one of the more experienced, motivated, and determined of the bunch. This is the story of how the families, led by this young man, proved once again that no matter how dire things seem, good triumphs over evil in the end.

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Feel free to tell me what you think, be it good, bad, or ugly, I just request that you keep comments clean.

Also, if there are any questions that you would like answered, or additional parts to the story that you would like to see, feel free to let me know and I may be able to get something written down for my growing list of excerpts (additional/alternate scenes ECT). Again, I ask that your requests be kept clean and a heads up that I will not be writing anything with sexual content (please keep them in the family/friendship and PG rated vicinity, thanks).

Thank "You" for reading! :D


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Becoming Caffrey**

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Thank you for the reviews, follows, and favorites! I am excited to see what people think. :D

This story is complete, but I will only be posting the new chapters on Sundays. I am in the process of writing the excerpts and hope to have them completed by the time the main story is entirely up.

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Friday and mortgage fraud. What a horrible combination! No wonder the agents are all sitting around trying to look like they are busy until a reasonable time to head home. Personally, I was an early bird for this charade as I have been faking it almost all day. My stack of files were completed quickly and I have been pretending to do research for the last half an hour. Instead of focusing on work, my mind has been wondering back to how I got to be here playing Neal Caffrey in the first place.

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The tale starts like any other life, on my birthday, in Washington DC. My parents are Nathan and Moriah Camden, both agents for the DEA, and I have an identical twin brother Neal Thomas. Following a family tradition I am named Nathan Daniel for my father and Neal is named for our grandfathers. To start what separated me from my family we have to tell what happened to the real Neal George Bennett.

Bennett was born the same day and at the same hospital just down the hall from Neal and me. However, what was supposed to be the beginning of long lives for the three of us just turned out a few short hours for Bennett. He was born with some health issues, what was never known for sure, and when the doctor tried to treat him little Bennett reacted badly and died. Fearing a malpractice law suit the doctor sought to hide the death. It turned out that the nursery had two healthy dark haired blue eyed boys of the same age and relative size. No one would notice if he switched young Bennett out for one of the Camden twins, right? Well, it turns out that although "my" death was due to unknown causes, it was assumed that one of the family enemies got to me as a warning to my parents, and the switch was unsuspected for eighteen years.

I was raised as Neal Bennett the son of a DC cop named James Bennett and his wife. For two years I was my daddy's little boy, and my mommy's little angel. Then Kathryn Hill, James' partner, caught him red handed for murder and life took another twisting turn. While James turned state's evidence, Mrs. Bennett, Katie, and I were put into Witness Protection. For the next fifteen years I was Danny Brooks the kid without a father, had a mother who withdrew into herself, and an Aunt Ellen who tried to make up for what was lacking in my life. Ellen spent much of her free time trying to teach me. She and the Marshals all invested time to share their knowledge, tips, experience, and the promise of recommendations for the academy when I came of age. I grew to be independent, observant, capable of defending myself, adept at being who ever I wanted to be, and other skills that would be necessary for me to be a good cop.

When I went to college I got my degrees in law and art history from an Ivy League institution. I graduated top of my class with honors at the young age of seventeen. After graduation I had almost a year off to work and prepare for my future before I would be of age to begin my goals. For my eighteenth birthday Ellen threw me a party with just the two of us. There I told her my plans and showed her the registration papers for the academy that I had filled out. Then my life was turned upside down for a third time.

I still remember the way Ellen said "There is something I have to tell you…" It was obvious that something bad was coming. First, she told me that my father was a dirty cop. When I refused to believe her, she told me she had proof, and that when I was ready I could have it. Secondly, she went on to explain what his actions had done to my life. That evening I learned that I was not from St. Louis, my name was Neal, and my father was alive. As if that wasn't enough, she finally told me her suspicions. She felt it was time that I knew, as it might help soften the other blows. Well, it kind of softened them, otherwise it just made the situation worse.

Growing up under the impression that Bennett was a heroic cop who went down in the line of duty, I wanted to be just like him and sought the proofs that I was my father's son every chance I could get. Mom always told me that my father was the blue in my eye and this was the one connection I had to him. Otherwise, it was easier to address the differences than the similarities between my parents and me. From physical appearance to intelligence, through personality, morals, skills, ECT I bore little resemblance to my heritage. Really, my eyes are a different shade of blue, so even the eye color was more wishful thinking than reality. Ellen's theory for this was simple. I wasn't a Bennett or a Caffrey at all. Watching me grow up and how it became more and more difficult to see any resemblance, she had long since suspected something to be off. But who thinks of being switched at birth, most just think I took after more distant relations, or was the product of the milk man breed of scenarios. Still, whatever the cause, I didn't appear to be a Bennett. I was secretly tested without Mrs. Bennett's knowledge and sure enough, my identity was one big blank spot. I was relieved not to be the son of a murderer, but really there was nothing to say I wasn't the son of a mass murderer. So, here I was eighteen ready to face the world with two degrees and no idea who I really was or what to do now.

James was in state's evidence, Mrs. Bennett was in wit-sec and had withdrawn appearing to have suspected the truth that I wasn't her son on some level of mother's intuition, and with the promise from Ellen to keep in touch I was ready to go and leave my past of lies behind, but where to was still a mystery. Ellen rescued me with her suggestion that I work for the DEA through an old friend of hers and make my own life to determine for myself who I wanted to be. It took a while for the papers and all of the approvals for a "no name" agent to be organized, but in the end, who wouldn't want a genius child prodigy?

My boss decided that with my former ties to James it could be helpful for me to work the task force going after some of his old cohorts. These men had current ties to art via the forging industry which they used for laundering drug money. I was a perfect candidate being raised the son of Bennett who always wanted to follow in daddy's footsteps, and an artist with an encyclopedic knowledge of the industry. Even as a rookie I was quickly placed in the lead role and worked the streets to build the initial reputation for what became Operation Caffrey. The intent was to get street credibility as a criminal with a talent for forging and a desire to advance in the industry. I used the name Caffrey to reduce the bad reputation with the law due to Bennett's betrayals.

Word spread in the criminal underground about a young new guy and it didn't take long for the calls to roll in. As my reputation grew the cohorts James formerly worked with took the bait and let me into their operation. Having lived a life full of twisting turns I should have expected to be hit again, but I didn't.

The operation proceeded like normal, we exchanged work for payment, but no face to face yet as I hadn't become trusted. After a few months I passed all of the initial tests and was about to be introduced into the inner circle. We had a meeting set for a warehouse outside of the city and I was to come alone. We had a safe monitoring system in place, back up ready, and I was set for the meet. Walking into the warehouse I was greeted by all guns pointed at me and a series of angry insults.

We knew FBI was working an angle with this group, but had no idea the implications it would have when we went in for the bust. It turns out that the lead agent for the FBI was my twin brother Neal of all coincidences. The crew thought I was the FBI playing them and it quickly went bad. They abducted me out the back, removed my wires, and disappeared before my back up could bust down the door. It took twelve hours to track me down, rescue me, make the arrests, and by then I had been beaten within an inch of my life.

An ambulance rushed me to the hospital where another prodigy, a doctor, by the name of Nicholas Neal Ryder was a part of my medical team. The surgery went well and I was placed in ICU for recovery. While treating me Nick was suspicious. Although he hadn't seen Neal since before the families split up, he recognized me for who I really was. Between him recognizing me, and my team tracing down the FBI agent I was mistaken for, it didn't take long for my identity problem to be cleared up. Everything was all taken care of by the time I woke up and my family was waiting outside to meet me once the news had been broken. Finally, there was a good twist in my life's journey and things started to become what they should have been all along.

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A tap on my desk jerks me back to the present. Glancing up at Peter who is standing in front of my desk, then to the clock on the wall I realize that I successfully tuned out the office.

"When did it get to be six o'clock already?"

Looking back at Peter he smirks at my quizzical expression and with a laughing voice he asks,

"Find something that good?"

He knows I have been faking it by my expression, as well as I know he's done at least one crossword today by the slight ink stain by his mouth where he accidentally didn't close the pen before thoughtfully putting it to his face. I shrug off his question and he lets it slide. When he then has a curious expression for my distraction I evade answer with a simple comment of "Memories."

Again he lets me slide, for now, and extends his expected offer of dinner over. Apparently, El is trying a new catering venue for a client with exotic taste and she needs my pallet to judge if this one is acceptable. Following our routine Peter and I leave the office bantering like we always do, and I leave my secret memories behind for another day.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Operation Caffrey**

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Safely ensconced in the apartment at June's, with my security additions guarding the premises, it is a good opportunity for me to relax and do an original, by me painting. No one is around to catch me doing work without the Caffrey personality and it will be quickly tucked away without hesitation when it is finished. I intend for no one to have the opportunity to study the strokes and recognize it as a Neal. It would not be helpful for the office to know that I can do modern works as well as the classics. That would simply open up the possibility of a new investigation and an inquiry into my work which could have disastrous effects if it is connected to the concept that I am playing Caffrey.

As I sweep my brush across the canvas, the resulting streak of color adds to the abstract of the image. My mind is wandering which restrains me from doing my usual, more detailed work. I can't help but reminisce back through the details of meeting my brother and joining him in Operation Caffrey.

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Growing up I had watched my cousins, the identical quads, and even after Will was taken, they had a great camaraderie and could mimic each other to perfection. We always had to work to figure out which one was which when they got to playing their games. A part of me always envied them that ability. I had an identical twin brother too, but I was denied the chance to get to know him, the opportunity to play games and switch places. They were down one, I know, but three remained. For me, down one meant only one remained, and that was a tragedy.

Then Nick discovered that Nate was alive and I got my second chance!

That first night I knew who he was, Nate was still unconscious in the ICU and we couldn't visit him just yet. Still, through the glass I could see a perfect replica of myself hooked to so many machines it was terrifying. My parents weren't doing any better than me as they also paced the waiting area. Here they discovered that their oldest was alive after all, and no one had been looking for him. For eighteen years we had the opportunity to get to know him, but we missed out believing him to be dead. Well, we weren't wasting any more time now that the truth had been discovered.

After Nate woke up his doctor, our cousin, Nick gave him a little time to recover. Once his patient was ready Nick pulled out the files we had compiled while Nate slept and began to fill him in. Nate learned about the Antagonist, our family, our role in the families, and everything else that he would need to know to begin to fill him in on the life he lost. I was later told that Nate was silent for a few minutes as he absorbed the information, then he grinned from ear to ear. It was heartening to know that he was happy to discover who he really was, and that he didn't blame us for our mistake in not looking for him.

Our first meeting didn't go with two of us happening to pass in a random place and then doing the mirror image thing as we waved our hands or did jumping jacks looking like idiots. Instead, it was in a hospital room with me standing eagerly, yet awkwardly, and my brother laying in the bed fidgeting with the sheets nervously while staring at me. I decided to start the conversation with a cheesy joke.

"The downside of being identical twins is being mistaken for each other."

He chuckled and told me that it could be an upside as well. With smiles we began to catch up.

For those first few days we were inseparable going over who we were, where we had been, what our family was like, and anything else we could think of. Nothing was unimportant, no detail too small. Gradually, we had a simple foundation of who we were and it was time to focus on where we were going.

After a few weeks in recovery, and some down time to get things settled officially, we started looking at Operation Caffrey again, but together that time. The task force was DEA and FBI each having our own goals but the same approach. It was arranged that Nate and I would both be playing Caffrey. With Nick's help we set it up so that Caffrey's appearance was different than Nate and I. This was to give us the option of being agents as ourselves and criminals as Caffrey, without our physical appearances giving us away again. We set new targets with the Кузнец экипажа, or the forger ring for the Antagonist and moved the operation to New York City.

Here our team got more interesting with the addition of a street con named Mozzie. He had no idea that his new buddy Neal Caffrey was actually twin DEA and FBI "suits" undercover to catch some of the very forgers they competed with. However, he has helped us make great strides in our efforts. Working with him we got a better idea of how to do the job and Caffrey started to adapt into a legend instead of the local go to guy.

Mozzie's first target was a big city business man named Vincent Adler. Since there was a DC team who had followed contacts into his office we teamed up with another FBI crew. The undercover FBI agent was posing as Kate Moreau. She and Nate hit it off quickly and began building the guise of a growing office romance. He took lead working opposite of her, and I used my skills as a professional artist, before joining the FBI, to do the forgeries and work with Mozzie. We managed to make this work to our advantage for the most part but, occasionally, I would get caught in a situation where I would have to take lead, and it was awkward having to flirt with my brother's girlfriend.

Everything was progressing nicely. Caffrey had a set reputation as a criminal to the point of having a White Collar FBI team chasing him, Mozzie remained unaware of the truth, and Kate was getting close to Adler. Then things slipped. It turned out that Adler was onto Caffrey and three teams failed to realize or prevent the giant, billion dollar Ponzi scheme he was pulling off.

Nick came to our rescue. He has been consulting since we teamed up a few years ago and has been building contacts in agencies all over the world and used his resources to take Caffrey to the next level.

At that point we expanded to include the CIA, NSA, and even MI6 to the task force. We were infiltrating the Antagonist all over the world, searching for Adler, and laying ground work to take Caffrey international. Kate was assigned to another task force and Nate followed, working the DEA side. While the love birds strengthened their relationship I was "pining" for Kate and growing the legend of Caffrey.

While Mozzie and I were traveling around the world I was faking crimes and spreading rumors. Alex Hunter was my DEA contact and we made Mozzie an unofficial analyst for our team. Over the years we uncovered nine operations of the Antagonist's projects, took down several single criminal operations, even made a few enemies like Keller, but no one found a single clue as to where Adler had disappeared to.

Nate and Kate secretly married and we moved Operation Caffrey back to New York. We wanted Caffrey to serve time so that we could transition the operation into our next phase. The White Collar, FBI team who had been chasing us were the perfect means, especially since they were a key part to where we were heading. So, we let them know where Kate was and Nate pretended to fall into the trap, all for the sake of love. Working cases out of the DEA office Nate and Kate kept up the charade that Caffrey was in prison while not breaking cover with the FBI office.

I used an alias with the Antagonist forgery ring and infiltrated the organization. My cover was that I got a look alike to distract the FBI, and paid him well to serve my time. This gave me a clear run to go underground with a clean name. We had knowledge of nine divisions working for this project and I was now inside of the last one…or so I thought.

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A signal from my phone alerts me to June's approach before she reaches the door. In seconds my painting is secreted away into my hiding spot, even Mozzie can't find it there.

She has reached the door and her gentle knock has me striding across the room to greet her. I am to join her for the evening downstairs. That is a much better way to spend my time than sitting up here thinking about the past, so I agree with a smile and escort her down the stairs. My painting is in no rush to be completed after all.

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Thank you for reading :D

This is the third chapter out of seventeen with an estimated seventeen chapters of excerpts to follow as an additional story posting later.

Also, as a heads up. I am adding a warning in the description of the story for some general reference (not detailed because I can't think like that) to violent harm to children later (the reason for such drastic efforts to protect and hide the children growing up).

Please let me know what you think as this is my first story, and I would like to know what I am doing well and where I could use improvement. :)


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**Hope for the Future**

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Thank you for the reviews, I am glad that readers are enjoying the story! :D I spent that last few months writing this and I am excited to share it :)

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Commander Cole Barker 007.

Sitting here, I have nothing to do but stare out the window at dreary London and there isn't much to see. The weather is cold, wet, and dirty so people prefer to stay indoors and there is little activity.

I am restlessly waiting for my next orders either from MI6 or from my undercover role for Operation Dominoes in the Antagonist project черный рынок, or the black market crew of smugglers. With nothing else to do my mind is wandering through the operations and what I am trying to discover.

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Once we had infiltrated all ten of the project divisions run by Antagonist, we set up a new name for our operation. The Caffrey Operation became only a cog in the greater operation known as Dominoes. This had the intention of connecting and taking down the entire empire in a series of raids, just like knocking over a domino and watching it take down the rest of the tiles in a game of Dominoes.

My position of smuggling products, information, payments, and anything else that needed to be moved gave me the ability to confirm that we had people inside of every division in the project. The crew is connected to every aspect of the organization so it is vital that I hold my role.

After several months of working my way up through the ranks I discovered what everyone had been seeking for four long generations. The weakness to the Antagonist had been found.

When smuggling I can be called in by any group in the project to move anything. Because of this, I discovered that one crew kept track of who was doing what and all of the details. They encrypted the data using a complex code then the information is sent to the Intersect group. There it is encoded into images Intersect style. Next, these images go to the forgery crew who hides them in forged art work and finally we smugglers take it where ever we are ordered to. In essence this is an information paper trail that can eventually be used to document everything about the Antagonist allowing us to completely take them down.

As I can get my hands on various pieces of this process I forward the information to the analysts. They in turn share it with other analysts involved in Dominoes. So far, we have discovered that the encrypting is based on a key and that the Intersect has an unusual method of encoding. In other words, we have very little until we find the keys to these problems. It's like having a book of everything we need to know laying in front of us and we can't read it no matter how desperately we try.

A while back I got an assignment from my crew boss Larissa. The Fulcrum had gotten a successful version of the Intersect into the head of a "Patient Zero." Data for the patient was hidden on a scientist involved who worked the project code named Salamander. I was given the location of his grave and ordered to retrieve his belt and the attached buckle with the chip hidden inside. After retrieval I was to transport the chip to the Intersect group to be decoded.

My handler from MI6 was notified of the assignment and it became an official mission to retrieve the chip and switch it out for a fake. We added the need to retrieve a decoder to get the information, and create a convincing fake.

The retrieval went without a hitch and I arrived at my hotel safely. My plans were derailed when after a trip to the bar, my company turned out to be Agent Walker.

This led to a shootout with a helicopter, Chuck blowing our efforts to bust Fulcrum, getting captured and tortured…twice, being shot (again, twice), and a whole host of other problems. That's not even mentioning losing the girl (to a nerd of all people), having to decipher grunts for communication, and being stuck in the van when the trouble broke out.

Working with Operation Bartowski wasn't so bad in the end though. It turned out Casey is a great agent and a solid military man, Sarah chose Chuck because he gives her a connection to a real normal life (something she didn't appear to have experienced much), and Chuck seemed to be a smart, good hearted analyst who has kept some of his naïve traits that the rest of us have lost. Still, he did need to learn how to carry a gun, or something, in order to defend himself because after watching him a couple of times, that man was a menace in combat situations.

Finding Perseus was a later addition to the mission. It was hoped that Dr. Busgang would be able to help us decipher the encoding process for the Intersect method used to hide the Antagonist's information in the images. But even with his death, there was still new hope for the operation. After all, Chuck was an active Intersect, and we had found the beginnings of a trail that could lead us to finding Orion. The man was a pro at hiding and had been evading all efforts to find him for years. If Orion was Steven Ryder, or even just had a connection to him, we could find him now that he had showed up on radar again. I was certain that the combination of Steven's knowledge with Chuck's skill at using the Intersect would be everything we needed to discover the key to the Intersect encoding of the Antagonist. This was my hope for the future.

* * *

My stomach rumbles reminding me that evening has come. It seems to be a good time to go to the corner pub for a bite and a drink. I put my phones in my pockets so that no matter who may call I can receive my orders and progress my work. Until then there are basic needs to tend.

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This is the shortest chapter in the story, and they get longer as the story gets more involved. I will be posting the cover art next chapter as the introduction describes where the image comes from :D


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Caffrey in the FBI**

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Blue. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. It carries an association with depth and stability as well as the sea and sky. At the moment, it is all that I can see.

Laying stretched out here on the brink there is nothing to obstruct my view. No skyscrapers, no traffic, and no bustling crowds of people. I have the weekend off and I am strictly ordered not to do any work of any kind, so I came out to the middle of nowhere.

My personal plane, *Aderes, waits at a nearby airstrip and I climbed my way up the face of the rocks. At the top of the cliffs highest point I could be a million miles away from civilization. There is a reminder of its existence though, a plane trail streaking across the sky. It is the only break in my view of the heavens, and I can't help but love it anyway. To me it is a freedom unrestrained by boundaries, the feeling of the wind in my hair, and a solitary reprieve un-threatened by interruptions.

If I could fly I would leap off of this cliff and soar. With graceful wings I would leave this world and all of its battles behind. As much as I love every job I do, it is tiring at times. I have fought for my life all of my life and for the lives of others since shortly after I could walk. Everything I do whether it is medicine, consulting, my service in the Air Force, or my role with the NSA is an effort to serve, heal, and protect those who can't do so for themselves. The heavens have always been my escape from all of this. Eventually loyalty, honor, protectiveness, duty, and my love for my family and friends brings me back. With landing, the mantle of responsibility returns to my shoulders and I again feel the controlling need to be involved and ensure that all is as well as it can be.

Having three younger identical quadruplets and even younger twin sisters, as well as having been attacked with life threatening assaults all of our lives, I developed a protective streak early. This has carried into all of my work and given me a code name of shield and a well-loved nick name of mother hen. One team I worked with had an artist, he created a cartoon depicting a mother hen carrying a shield and guarding her chicks. The hen was me of course and the chicks were all in law enforcement, government, or military uniforms. The sad part is that it stuck and now copies have spread through every division, team, and organization I have ever worked with. It is a bit embarrassing, but I take it as a compliment and a sign that for all the razzing I get, my teams appreciate that I care so much.

Protection. This is the basis of my code name, my work, and the reason for me putting Caffrey into the FBI.

* * *

It came time for the Caffrey role to come into play again. Nate and Kate wanted to start a family so Kate disappeared. This served two purposes. The first was to begin removing Kate from the picture, as far as field work went, and secondly to bring Caffrey to Agents Burke's attention again.

Since we had been gaining so much ground on the Antagonist we feared that any day they would realize just how close we were. Their first targets would be the lost ones. Since Peter, and Elizabeth are two of these lost ones, a position close to them was be a beneficial way to observe what is going on around them and prove obstacles to anyone meaning them harm.

The chosen method for this was to build on Caffrey's criminal reputation as a benefit to law enforcement. That is the whole point behind confidential informants, criminals who work with the law to take down other criminals. Caffrey could do that. After all, he had secretly been taking criminals down all along.

Agent Burke was our in. He was brought back to the case to investigate Caffrey's escape. Our insiders at the prison said he smirked on several occasions checking into the details. Those little humorous bits were for his benefit, he always did like a good joke. When he caught up in the apartment the red thread on his shoulder was a happy coincidence, easily identified, and a valid reason to set up a meet with some insurance that it would be accepted. A week after the arrest, our plans were laid out and Peter went home to contemplate the idea of taking on the responsibility of Caffrey as his CI.

We knew Peter had been caught up in the thrill of the chase on more than one occasion. He liked smart, and being played by geniuses, Caffrey fit the role very well. Still, it took a while for Peter to do his research into the case again and debate the pros and cons. In the end, his understanding and hopes for Caffrey lead him to agree.

The terms were a two mile radius, a tracking anklet, and keeping a good closure rate with other more minor specifications. This was easy. With multiple players for the Caffrey role it wasn't challenging to work both inside and out of the radius, although the anklet was new the trackers weren't, and all involved with Caffrey had always had high closure rates.

Caffrey's accommodations didn't start out so great. I have been in worse as a prisoner, but still not exactly something I wanted to be in long term. Fortunately there was a run in with a lady by the name of June Ellington at a local consignment shop. She graciously agreed to rent a convicted felon her rooftop apartments and not only open her home but her heart as well.

The look on Peter's face the next morning was priceless and his comment of "You look like a cartoon!" was just one example of his annoyance at the situation.

In the office there was the usual general work place friendliness, the distrustful side glances, and the open animosity for Caffrey. His desk was placed in the open right by the door. A handy location visible from just about any perspective in the office, especially from Peter's desk. The first case was to catch the Dutchman with the later timeline of the end of the week. This was pulled of and the partnership was off to a slow start.

With Elizabeth, it was even easier to integrate into her life. Her marriage to Peter and long term experience at dealing with the results of Caffrey's existence made it as simple as showing up. A knock on her door, a well groomed appearance, megawatt smile, combined with a friendly greeting and the introduction of Neal Caffrey had her opening right up. She wanted to meet the man who took her husband's attention away on so many occasions and she had an unobserved chance, she took it. I am still amused by the look on Peter's face as he came down the stairs ready to hunt Caffrey to the ends of the Earth only to discover him setting on his couch, petting his dog, and talking to his wife. Even El couldn't hold back her amusement at Peter's reaction.

Since the first meeting had occurred it was only a matter of time before Caffrey was accepted as an extended part of the family in the Burke household. In reality, the agents playing Caffrey were all cousins, but that's beside the point.

My father and Uncle Steven used their engineering magic to set up monitoring systems that the agencies didn't know about and even Mozzie's paranoia couldn't detect. A team moved in nearby with the neighbor cover, we integrated an agent into El's working environment, and Caffrey had the office covered. With the addition of the backup teams on call 24/7, we had the basics covered to keep them safe.

Then it was a matter of acting out our purpose. For cases and field work we worked to keep Caffrey's criminal connections and utilized them in solving whatever case came our way. In the office we watched for anyone who seemed suspicious and we turned up a few dirty agents. Some had made bad decisions like Fowler and others were dirty like Kramer, but all of them were problems that we had to deal with in the open or behind the scenes.

Some situations have forced us to take more drastic approaches to keep them safe. That case against the CEO Wesley Kent and the poisoned Armagnac is an example. Peter and Kent were out of it enough in the elevator that neither one had any idea that they were given shots to hold them over until they could receive the antidote. Then there was the Burke seven against Julian Larson. We took on an Antagonist working with Adler so there were the inevitable twists and unexpected attacks. In the open we were catching Mozzie's shooter and protecting Peter's name. Behind the scenes we also fended of two attempts for Peter's life, one for El's, and blocked off several attempts to blackmail Peter with the false accusations. There were other cases when Peter and/or Elizabeth were kidnapped, attempts at blackmail, threats, traps of various sorts, and attacks of all kinds. It took the full efforts of everyone involved to make sure things didn't become known, or if known that they were solved quickly with the implication of being a onetime event.

At times it was difficult to hold back pretending to be a nonviolent con whose only helpful skills in these situations were a silver tongue, intelligence that reached outside the box, and criminal actions, but we played along because the stake of losing were far too high.

* * *

Orange is now becoming the dominant color around me. It reflects off the water in the distance, the rocks take on its hues, and the sky is ablaze like crackling flames. Laying here I watch the flames change color through the reds, purples, and right down to the last vestiges lighting the horizon. With the moon and stars lighting my way it's time to set up a fire for dinner and camp for the night.

As the night continues to unfold I am settled in and now free to watch the heavens again. I am caught up in the stories of the stars watching God's majesty laid out on the universe for a canvas. Comparatively, I am rather insignificant, yet I know he has carried me through everything and that I am of more importance to him than this entire star scape stretched out above me. If it were otherwise, I wouldn't be here, plain and simple.

With my soul at peace, my mind and body can rest. God will care for my troubles, I will slumber through the night, and tomorrow can care for itself.

* * *

*Aderes – Hebrew name for a girl meaning "protector"

* * *

Thank you for your continued interest in my story :)


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Operations and Nephews**

* * *

Another mission down and the bad guys are in lock up. The evening is now mine to do with as I please.

Trimming my bonsai I catch sight of the frame hanging on the wall. It's a collection of family portraits hidden in a greater picture, something that hasn't been done in my family in over twenty years, since before we split up.

My real name is Alexander Casey Ryder and my family reunion started after I accidentally shot and killed my nephew.

* * *

I had been listening over my radio to the reports of Larkin's progress. He was taking agents down like they were inexperienced and out running the rest like they were standing still.

This was going to come down to me, _grunt _as usual.

Based on the direction he was heading and the terrain of the buildings in the vicinity I predicted where this would end. Just as I expected he came taking the building in leaps and bounds or monkeying his way down the cables draped along the side. He landed, looked back, and I took my shot. With guys like Larking you shoot to kill, so I did. I could see the moment he stopped breathing, and when I leaned over to check that he was in fact dead, there was something familiar about him that I couldn't place.

Later, after Larking had been taken in the ambulance I returned to my station to do the paper work. Once that was completed I decided to look deeper, to find the reason for that familiarity. I checked into his records with the CIA (which had been exemplary until his recent rogue activities), his college career, and back to as much of his youth as I could find. As annoying as he was in the field, he seemed to be an all American boy with an innocent background. Then I came upon a picture of him and his parents, and I realized that his appearance was faked, altered to hide his real identity.

Horrified I realized that I had just killed my brother's son, a nephew that I hadn't seen in years.

At first I felt really guilty. My older brother Nicholas had one son abducted as little more than a toddler, and I had just shot another of the quads taking him by a more permanent means. Then I thought about a few things. First, said nephew had altered his appearance somehow, was going by a different name, and was the traitor I was ordered to bring down dead or alive. Second, with all of the family ties to agencies and the Intersect it was possible that he was undercover and the rest of us just didn't know about it. Finally, the kid has been technically killed before and has always had a knack for sticking around until someone came to the rescue. I had hope. Maybe he wasn't rogue, and maybe I wasn't responsible for killing him.

After looking into the possibility of contacting my brother, and finding nothing, I was left with no other option but to wait and see how things worked out. The situation was set to the back of my mind and my focus turned back to protecting the Intersect. I was curious to see why Bryce sent it to this nobody in California.

Sitting in the parking lot of the Buy More the mission was straight forward and clear. We were to capture the recipient of the Intersect, Charles Bartowski, then question him to see what he knew and who he was working for.

It didn't take long for the mission to become an operation after Bartowski prevented that bombing.

In the beginning Chuck appeared to be a weak, moronic, idiot and I had no idea why Bryce would trust him with something as important as the Intersect. Then I got to know the kid and discovered that he was trust worthy, loyal, naïve, and not afraid to show his emotions. When it came down to it, he had guts to do what he had to as well.

Given time I learned to rely on our unorthodox group and Walker turned out to be the best partner I ever worked with.

Then Bryce turned up again.

As I stared at him in that box I was secretly relieved that he was alive and I would have the chance to test my theory. He was taken to a medical facility and restrained until it could be cleared up what he had been doing. It came as no surprise that he only talked to Chuck and promptly escaped, considering what I knew about him.

Shooting him at my apartment was a warning that I wasn't happy with him. He was a rogue agent on the loose, a lot of people wanted him dead, he had hidden his identity from me, and I thought I had killed him last time, also, I knew he would be wearing a vest so it would only be painful.

I finally got some answers as to why Bryce stole the Intersect and pretended to be rogue when he and Chuck explained about Operation Sandwall and the undercover assignment.

During the evening, when Sarah was distracted by Chuck for a moment, I signaled Bryce a coded message (Ryder style) for a private meeting to discuss the rest. His eyes opened wide and his mouth dropped open a little with surprise, but he nodded in agreement. For the others we kept up our animosity for cover so no one would realize our family connection until we wanted them too.

Eventually, we got that meeting and we had a lot to discuss. We spent several hours going over the details of our lives, discussed our last meeting of sorts, came up with plans for handling things in the future, and the operations that we were involved in. I was also informed of the big reason why Bryce sent the Intersect to Chuck. The Bartowski family is headed by my older brother Steven Ryder which makes them family.

This was when Operation Bartowski became a part of Operation Dominoes. We were to keep an eye on the Intersect, continue to keep others from getting the technology, and I was tasked to keep my eye open for anything related to the Antagonist.

It came time for Bryce to leave on another mission, but we had a technique in place to keep in secret contact. He also put me in touch with the rest of the families he had contacts for so I could learn where everyone else was to avoid accidentally killing anyone again.

In Castle missions continued, Chuck improved as a team member, Sarah and I got a comfortable working routine established, and I got a secret system set up to work with the families against the Antagonist.

Work at the Buy More was as dull as ever. Big Mike's inattention made it easy to slip off to Castle for breaks when the temptation to start target shooting the idiots got to be too much to resist. As for my other cover coworkers, Morgan's loyalty to Chuck gave him some credit towards being tolerable otherwise the bearded gnome remained a complete moron, most of the under achievers did as little as possible for the day and then went home, and I won't even begin to describe the creepiness that permeates the air around Jeff and Lester.

At home there was my bonsai to trim, guns to clean, Reagan's picture to polish, the history channel to watch, and monitoring my nephew with a peripheral on his sister and her boyfriend. I was often invited over to the Bartowski's as a friend of the family, but it gave me the opportunity to get to know them without them realizing that I was taking personal interest in their lives. Chuck expected me to be notating everything in my head as a spy, but my being their uncle was completely alien to his thoughts.

When we caught up to Orion I finally knew where all three of my brothers were.

As Steven was being drug away by Roark we exchanged a subtle nod of agreement that I would protect Chuck and do my best to rectify the situation of his captivity.

After Steven's rescue we combined resources and interlinked everything from the families, to our contacts, and our operations. This completed the information I needed because with Chuck no longer being the Intersect I was going to be getting a new assignment, and there was no telling what the nature of the work would be.

Later, our rescue efforts came too late and Bryce died the second time. This time, I was made aware of his resuscitation via our secret communication. Bryce went back to his work on Operation Dominoes and for me, nothing seemed to change, on the surface I didn't like him anyway and below the surface I knew that he was alive.

Orion's returned to his own efforts to keep the Intersect safe from multiple enemies with a multi continental wild goose chase. Chuck uploaded the 2.0 and followed the process to being an agent in his own right, which caused a strain in his relationship with Sarah. It took a while but the team got a new normal, and we continued to do what we do best.

Over the years we had some battles, but we prevailed. We took down Fulcrum, the Ring, Volkoff Industries, and many smaller criminal endeavors. Eventually, Ellie, Awesome, and several others discovered our secret involvement with the government and Morgan earned a spot on the team. Then my secret was partially uncovered. Kathleen came into the picture which led to me eventually telling her and Alex the truth as well.

The team continued to work and our personal circle continued to grow stronger. Soon enough it came time for the rest of the secrets I carried to come out.

* * *

_Ding_. An alert goes off on my computer. It appears that my family is having a conversation online and I just got invited to be included. Pulling up the site, I see the topic is how to tell Chuck the truth and getting him to put on the glasses that have been put together to remove the Antagonist's Intersect in his head.

This is going to be an interesting trick. He thinks that everyone else may have secret past, but once upon a time he had a normal life (as normal as growing up with two spy parents can be) and he knows where he comes from. The near future is going to change all of that. I hope he doesn't scream like a girl and over react…

* * *

This is mentioned again in the last chapter, but I would like to give readers a heads up. I am planning on writing a prompt based chapter later where I would like to answer any questions that haven't been answered in the course of the story and excerpts. If there is anything you have questions on or things that I have missed, please let me know so that I can ensure the whole story is told and get your question/s included in that chapter. Also, if you would like to see a particular character ask the question (ex. Mozzie could ask "...?") and I will ensure that the appropriate character answers. :D (Please, keep your questions clean though :)

Also, my profile has an updated list of the growing number of stories that I have written and ready to post. I plan on continuing to post a chapter every Sunday steadily as long as my completed material lasts.

Thank You for reading :D


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

**Ellie Reminisces**

* * *

**Warning: **This is a chapter that contains the mention of child harm. It is not overly detailed, just enough to get the idea of what transpired.

* * *

As I sit watching Clara sleep, I remember how lucky I am. My beautiful little girl is sleeping peacefully beneath my watchful gaze, in the next room my awesome husband is recuperating from a long shift, and the rest of my family are out doing what they do. Thinking about them. I remember back to the days before we split up, nearly losing my brother, getting a new life, discovering my families' careers, and most importantly the day, when my brother regained himself.

* * *

Going back to my childhood I was born Eleanor Faye Ryder. My parents, Steven and Mary, were a computer engineer and a traveling business woman. We lived in New York within traveling distance to the city.

Our family dominantly remained in New York for generations so events had always been big, noisy, and frequent. At these times there was always some favorite cousin or relative to gravitate to for the duration of whatever activities were planned. Chuck always went to our cousin Alexander Bryce, or Bryce, and I always stayed with our cousin Elizabeth Brennan, or El. These cousins were our best friends, and we were inseparable given the opportunity. However, at one such family event, that all changed.

It was a typically beautiful summer's day and the Ryder family was having a get together in the local park. After eating, the adults formed a perimeter of sorts and we kids were given free range to play within. I settled beneath the slides to play with my dolls while Chuck disappeared with the other boys to play hide and seek.

Everything was going fine until popping sounds broke through our general noise. Suddenly, the adults were on alert and I was ordered to lay on the ground behind the slide base. Once the chaos subsided, I was okay, but others weren't.

My uncle Casey was unconscious and his attackers had gotten past the perimeter. The boys were playing hide and seek when everything happened and Peter was on turn as seeker so he continued looking for the others. Joseph, Joe, was found first and joined in the search. They were the unfortunate ones to find the quads and frantically drew Aunt Beth, a doctor, to the scene. The attackers had gone after the quads using a method of lining them up and shooting the boy in front with the intention of shooting the next one after he fell, like a target shooting game. Instead, Nick fell back, causing the other boys to be piled behind him, while he took all of the shots. If his heart was in the normal location he would have been dead, but as it was he did die temporarily. Aunt Beth, his mom, resuscitated him while waiting for the ambulance. When the medics arrived he was whisked away to the hospital with his mom in tow.

Meanwhile the search for Chuck had turned up empty. Mom found where he had been, but there were signs of a struggle. He had been taken!

Everyone teamed up to handle the various situations. Peter and Uncle Nicholas took the boys to the hospital to be as close to Nick as possible. Uncle Casey regained consciousness, but came with my grandparents and me for the evening. The rest organized a search and rescue to get Chuck back.

My grandparents spent the night on the phone keeping track of what was going on and using contacts to help out where they could. Uncle Casey and I had pizza while we watch my favorite cartoons until after bed time. I fell asleep curled up next to him on the couch, which is why I felt it when he moved, picked me up, carried me to a guest room, and tucked me in for the night.

I woke up later in the night to the sound of noises coming from the kitchen. After slipping out of bed I crept to the door and pressed my ear against it. Upon hearing my parents worried voices I snuck down the hall to see what was going on. Listening to the conversation all I could understand was that something was wrong with my brother.

"What's wrong with Chuck?"

At my question, all heads turned to me. My mom told me that he was okay, but he had been scared and might react differently than I was used to. When I asked where he was, mom took me over to the couch. He was sound asleep and a little restless. Since I didn't want to leave him and he calmed with my presence, mom let me sleep on the couch as well. Lulled by my family's quiet conversations I quickly fell asleep.

The next morning it didn't take long for me to notice that Chuck was staying closer to me than usual, he was also quiet and a little skittish. I remembered mom telling me he was scared so I let him tag along with me throughout the day.

At dinner that night my parents announced that they had new job opportunities and we were moving. Although no one ever said it, I had an instinctual feeling that it had something to do with what happened to Chuck. Before he was taken he played like any other three year old, he climbed as high as he could (which often got him into trouble), and he played with a toy medical kit Aunt Beth had gotten for him to teach him how to be a doctor like her. Then, after the abduction, he wouldn't climb, didn't go anywhere near the kit, and suddenly preferred his rainy day indoor games to his rambunctious outdoor play of before. Suddenly, everything that followed was okay.

We packed up everything, said our tearful goodbyes, and left. For a year we bounced around changing names and distancing ourselves from the past. I missed my family, especially El, but if it meant that Chuck wouldn't have to go through something so scary again, then it was worth it.

Our new home was in Burbank California. We kept our first and middle names as links to our past, but we got a new last name, Bartowski. Life settle in and soon enough we had a new normal.

Mom and dad still did their work, I went to school and helped around the house, and Chuck picked up more video games and befriended Morgan. The little guy didn't take long to creep me out so I wanted him far away from me, but he did help my brother so he was tolerated in my vicinity.

When we were older mom went on a three day business trip and never came home. Chuck and I banded together and came up with Mother's Day on the day mom left to celebrate the day we were forced to learned to take care of ourselves. Then, a few more years went by and dad went out to get the ingredients for pancakes to make dinner, only to disappear as well. Dad sent us communications, occasionally, to see that we were still doing okay, but by this time I was in college and Chuck was finishing high school so we were of age to handle our independence.

Chuck and I did okay on our own. I went to college, worked, and took care of Chuck until he went off to Stanford. While he was in college I moved on to medical school and met Devon Woodcomb. After getting to know each other Chuck dubbed Devon with the nickname Captain Awesome because "Everything he does is awesome." We made up our own little family and things were fine, until Bryce.

It's funny how when we were kids Chuck had a close friendship with our cousin Bryce, and then after all of those years he had his friend Bryce who betrayed him. I supposed it's a good thing that he doesn't seem to remember anything of who we were or what happened.

When Chuck came home it was up to Morgan and me to help him overcome another big setback in his life. Still, he seemed to settle for the life of the under-achiever and began working with Morgan at the Buy More as a stock boy. I gave him his time and space, just like every other time.

Four years past with no glimmer of change before Sarah Walker came into our lives, and suddenly things started changing quickly. Chuck was never around (to the point I actually bonded with his creepy little friend Morgan), there was that guy John Casey who vaguely reminded me of my Uncle Casey, Chuck had his first girlfriend since Jill, and Devon and I advanced our relationship.

Our family grew to include Sarah, John, and even Morgan became a welcome sight around the apartment. When Devon and I married Chuck found our dad to walk me down the aisle, and when Clara was born he brought mom home to help with the biggest change of my life. Initially, I thought this was luck or a product of pure determination that he could find them after so long, but, in the midst of it all I discovered the truth. My parents actually worked for the CIA, Bryce had saved my brother from the CIA back in college, and then my brother was brought into the agency to work with Agents Walker and Casey for a special operation. Later, the Intersect became a family secret which led to the discovery of just how much of a family project it was.

* * *

The family get together was a result of my realization that we hadn't just sat back all in one location and had an evening to relax in each other's company in quite a while. I made a few calls and did some planning to get the others on board. Then we had an evening with mom, Chuck, Sarah, Casey, Alex, Morgan, Devon, and myself chatting around the living room and playing with little Clara. That's when the rest of the truth came out.

Nothing seemed unusual until John gave me a photo album. Opening it up, I fought back tears at the first picture. It was Chuck and I with all of our Ryder cousins in the park the last day we were together. Unable to speak, my expression relayed my question to John. For answer, he turned the page and pointed to a picture of my Uncle Casey. An instant later my mind had connected the pieces and I was up, throwing my arms around his neck, and crying my heart out. Except for mom, everyone else looked at us in confusion before directing their attention to the pictures to see what answers they could find.

As I calmed down Casey, mom, and I put our attention to the silent Chuck. He had continued to turn through the pages until he found a picture that had a black van approaching. His face paled, his hands shook, and his eyes had a big, distant, and yet terrified, look. It was obvious that he remembered after all, and everything he had buried deep in the back of his mind had just rushed to the front as emblazoned on his mind as ever.

Sarah and Morgan had settled themselves on either side of him and were desperately trying to break through his terror. As they struggled with Chuck, Devon and Alex were mystified how a few pictures could stir up such a chaos of emotions.

Uncle Casey decided it was time to snap Chuck out of his reverie, so with a commanding bark he shouted a safe phrase in code at him. Finally, Chuck was aware of his surroundings again but the worry hadn't left his eyes yet. To help him relax, mom and I chimed in with our safe codes as well. Combining that with Morgan telling him that whatever had happened in the past he was here safely surrounded by people who could fight off anything, and Sarah wrapping him in a comforting hug, Chuck calmed down the rest of the way.

Mom, Casey, and I recounted what had transpired that day at the park, the resulting changes, and other general histories that filled in the blanks. When we finished, Devon wrapped his arms around me while telling me that he was lucky to be married to such an awesome woman, Alex sat quietly processing this new information, Morgan was obviously excited that his relationship with Alex could officially make him family someday, and Sarah gave Chuck another hug before asking him if there was anything he wanted to talk about.

"Not really, but it's probably time I talked about what happened."

* * *

Devon's voice startles me as he asks me "What's wrong babe?"

I shake my head nothing, and say "I was just missing the rest of my family, I haven't seen them since I was a kid."

"Soon, babe, soon." Is his response as he walks a crossed the room so sit with me. We watch our baby sleep and in my heart I know he's right. Almost my entire family is out there fighting to finish the battle and bring everyone together after so long a part.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**Combining the Stories**

* * *

I am sitting on the roof top balcony sipping my morning ambrosia in the clouds. As I watch, the sunrise is reflecting off of the buildings surrounding June's and reflecting its colorful light all around me. The beauty of the night melting away and the morning breaking over the horizon is a sight that I have always enjoyed. When possible, I enjoy being on the water this time of day to combine my love of the sunrise with my love of water, but as I am needed to be here playing Caffrey, I have to make do with good coffee and a lovely sunrise.

While I move onto my breakfast the early morning fog is melting away and the noise escalates as it disappears. The change of the morning reminds me of how Operation Caffrey moved from a small operation with Nate working to bust a few of Bennett's old cohorts to a multiplayer role with an international enemy in the Antagonist as well as other smaller opponents like Adler.

* * *

After the work with the FBI began, the first big problem for Caffrey was the death of Kate, which was faked of course. We had gotten to Fowler first and set him up with a deal. He helped to fake Kate's death, and we gave him a deal for his crimes. For Kate, she disappeared from the field work side of the operations and settled in behind a desk. This wasn't her favorite place to be, but as she and Nate would be having Benjamin Joe within the year, it was a safe place for her.

When Adler came into play again, things got nasty. While Caffrey was chasing Adler for Kate's death, the rest of us were going after him for his past crimes and possible links to the Antagonist. We started to get close, but we spooked him. Sadly, Mozzie paid the price and was shot by Julian Larssen, which was a warning to back off on all fronts. As expected, we didn't listen and only put more people and effort into protecting our players. There were a few more sticky situations but with the help of the White Collar team, and a single shot from Peter, the whole case was finished. With the death of Adler all agencies descended and the frenzy quickly had all cases reliant upon him closed.

To follow up with the Adler issue, Mozzie just had to go and steal the treasure, which eventually brought Matthew Keller back. This caused El and Peter to be put in danger and brought a lot of strain to Caffrey's relationships in the office. We could have done without the extra trouble this caused on all levels, but we managed to overcome. Keller was taken down, the treasure returned to the people it had originally belonged to, and the relationships within the office remained shaky but everyone was pulled through safely.

Due to the shaky relationships and the suspicions that Caffrey had been responsible for the treasure theft, Peter brought in his old mentor. Agent Kramer was definitely involved with the Antagonist and had no good intentions for Caffrey from the start. From his perspective, Caffrey was the fake replacement paid off to be a decoy for the real forger who had gained a position working for the Antagonist. He believed that if he could get him away from the influence of Peter, and paid him off well enough, he would be willing to be a stooge. Caffrey would be pulling off crimes for the Antagonist in the shadows while being Kramer's Consultant in the open and taking his closure rates to a whole new level. This was too good of a deal for Kramer to pass up, so he fought hard and dirty. In the end he had done so well that we couldn't get past him.

Rather than send Caffrey to be a virtual slave in DC, Peter gave the permission and heads up for Caffrey to run. We took Caffrey for a nice little tour of the islands with Mozzie and they set up shop on one of the Cape Verde islands. In Mozzie's mind, they were cashing in on retirement, but for Caffrey it was a working vacation. Their location was a main information hub for the Antagonist as well as the secret hide out of Rob MacLeash. When Peter came into the picture we had to move up the time table on the Antagonist research, and used MacLeash's take down as a means of bringing Caffrey back. The trip proved extra helpful though, as the research Caffrey uncovered brought up the existence of a leader at the top of the ten divisions of the Antagonist. We had discovered the spider in the web.

With Caffrey's return to New York, Ellen came out to help advance the case against Bennett as he was the last non Antagonist opponent on the target list. She had given up her career, the life she knew, and was willing to give up her life to take down the man who betrayed her and the men behind him who gave the law she upheld a bad name. After several years, she kept her promise and gave us the evidence to prove Bennett was dirty.

Of course it couldn't be a direct "Here you go," but instead turned out to be a treasure hunt. It was fun to solve, and the race against Peter was just icing on the cake! The closer we got, the more danger there was and before we reached the end Ellen was killed and Peter took a hit of a different variety.

Senator Pratt combined with Bennett turned out to be mixing fire and gasoline. There was the accident and then the almost cincher to Peter's career when Bennett made him the fall man for Pratt's murder, a crime which Bennett had committed. We had been using Operation Recovery to keep Peter and the others safe, but now we had a new front to defend him from, the justice system its self. While Peter was doing his stint in orange, or in jail to be less color oriented, Caffrey and the FBI pulled a man hunt for Bennett.

They were completely unsuccessful. Why? We had arrested Bennett as soon as he was away from June's and out of sight.

The surface story was that Bennett called in to clear Peter's name, only to be later discovered that Caffrey and Mozzie faked the recording. Really, we had cameras that recorded the incident and with the evidence stacked against him Bennett confessed, it was recorded, and Caffrey pretended to create the recoding that was heard at Peter's indictment hearing. Peter was released and things seemed to pick up back to normal.

It didn't take long for Peter to get suspicious of Caffrey again, with good reason too. Behind the scenes, Caffrey had made a deal with Hagen and was doing assorted crimes with Mozzie to get the blackmailer off of his back. These crimes were meant to help the Antagonist as they had people pulling the strings from out of sight. They thought they had finally gotten their stooge and Caffrey was just another of many criminals under their thumb. Well, the jokes on them because we were using their jobs to get the upper hand and eventually used it to find the last keys to their eventual demise.

As more crimes were committed, the distrust grew stronger, and eventually some of the truth leaked out. Peter took measures into his own hands to rectify the problems that Caffrey had caused and emotionally distanced himself from the man who had become his best friend. This was a good thing, because as nasty as things had gotten in the past, things were about to get a whole lot worse.

With Caffrey's abduction we put Casey into the FBI office to "Aid in the international search" for Caffrey. After all, when your chasing spies, why not have the help of spies? Actually, he was just the temporary replacement for Caffrey tasked to keep everyone safe until we could get our usual man back.

It was rather interesting to see the meeting between Peter and Casey. On Casey's part he put up a show of mentally belittling the FBI because it was expected of him, and it fit his general opinion of other agents anyway. Peter, he was distrusting of this agent who, in his mind, had no reason to care for his friend's personal wellbeing and was likely more concerned with catching the culprits than anything else. In addition, there was the clash of wills, each was used to being in charge, having their orders followed without question, and each had different means of getting to the same end.

As Casey got himself integrated into the office he further set himself at odds with the other agents by using Caffrey's desk. This ruffled some feathers but, in the interest of finding Caffrey as soon as possible, it only brought up dirty looks, not subtle reminders of who the desk belonged too, and an open dislike for his very presence. It annoyed the agents even further when his general responses were short sentences or his famous grunts. Needless to say, things didn't get off to a very good start, but for Casey to protect them it was beneficial that he be by the door and Caffrey's desk provided the best means.

Peter started the search by looking in the case files. Being Caffrey's handle it was his responsibility to look into his old enemies, the cases they had worked together, and the usual start points that have to be looked into in the event of a disappearance.

The rest of the search consisted of pulling up Neal's tracking data for the last several days, tracking camera feeds where possible, and analyzing anyone who appeared to be suspicious. Casey took lead on this assignment and personally focused on watching the feed and analyzing any suspects. He was intense in his research and seemed rather nosy as he was always watching who came in the door, what they were carrying, and what they did while they were in the office, a puzzling mix to the agents watching him.

Casey found a clue when he got to the footage of Caffrey leaving the hospital after visiting Mozzie. There was a man leaning against the wall reading a newspaper. What raised a suspicion is how he hadn't turned the page in twenty minutes, followed by how he watched Caffrey leaving. Combining his face and his distinctive grey cowboy boots it was fairly simple to use the cities cameras to track him. He was following Caffrey's every move which made him the prime suspect.

FBI facial recognition didn't have the suspect in the database so the picture was ran through every database connected to the Operations Dominoes and Recovery. No luck, the last resort was to bring Chuck in with the Intersect. Casey took a snap shot of the image and texted it to Chuck. Since the entire office saw this there was an uproar of questions. Peter quieted the agents and asked the question himself.

"What did you do that for?"

"I work with the team that guards the nation's largest database. My team mate will run the picture against the database and see if he tags something."

It worked, within five minutes Casey's phone went off alerting him to Chuck's answer. The mystery man was a part of работорговцев, or the Antagonist's project that was involved with human trafficking. This group was used to move people from place to place and they could make Caffrey disappear to any location in the world. Obviously a problem. Luckily, Chuck also had information as to where Caffrey would have been taken. There was a base hidden in South America, in the middle of the Amazon jungle. Caffrey was in a tight spot and his rescue was going to be rather difficult. It turned out not to be necessary though.

While everyone was scrambling to plan an international rescue, Caffrey showed up. Not in a good way of course. Peter received a message with coordinates to a warehouse location on the edge of the city. Upon arriving the teams discovered that there were traps laid everywhere to add to the challenge of finding what the building contained. Casey led the way clearing traps and the teams eventually made it into the main area. In the middle of the room there was a tarp with the expected message pinned on top. The warning was that if the diamond wasn't handed over to the person who would be contacting Peter within the next twelve hours, Peter would be next. With trepidation, Casey and Peter unwrapped the tarp and the straps, like a present, to find Caffrey. He had been tortured and was a bloody mess.

After the ambulance had carried Caffrey to the hospital, with Peter at his side, Casey and the remaining agents covered every inch of the warehouse looking for clues. It was spotless. Leaving the rest to continue follow ups and look into how to handle the diamond situation, Casey switched to getting Chuck on hand immediately. It was time to bring the Intersect in before things went downhill any farther.

* * *

"'In nature, everything has a job. The job of the fog is to beautify further the existing beauties!' Mehmet Murat Ildan."

"Morning Mozz, care to join me?"

"Who would pass up the pleasures of a beautiful morning with a great coffee and a close friend to enjoy it with?"

As he sits down and pours himself a cup of the coffee I have been leisurely working my way through, I speculate as to what has put him into such a good mood. He notices my studying him but remains aloof, simply watching the fog disperse and the sun's rays growing brighter and warmer as the morning progresses. Eventually he decides to break the silence and begins to tell his tale.

Recently, he received a message from Mr. Jeffries. There have been people poking around and asking him about Mozzie. They have a story about a baby boy, of Mozzie's description, going missing a long time ago. New evidence had surfaced in the last few years allowing the trail to finally be connected from DC to Detroit, and the trail had gone cold again in the area. The theory was that the abductors had decided to abandon the baby and maybe he was left at the orphanage. Nothing was confirmed yet, but for Mozzie the idea that he wasn't abandoned was new. He now had hope that his parents were out there looking for him, and had been all along only to be stymied by his abductors skills of disappearing.

I congratulated him and hoped that things would come together for him, it was obvious that despite his many statements to the contrary, Mozzie wanted to meet his family and have a connection. After discussing some theories of our own we sat back and simply enjoyed listening to the rest of the city progressing through their weekend, each lost in our own thoughts and hopes for the future of Mozzie's identity.

* * *

Again, I would like to thank the three guest and Quinis for your reviews as I enjoy hearing what people think about my story :D


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

**Finding the Keys**

* * *

Working at the Buy More has become even duller than it was before I joined the CIA. After all, how does customer service compare to saving the world? Still, sitting behind the Nerd Herd desk with nothing to do is a nice time to reflect on all that has changed in my life recently.

* * *

Ellie had organized a get together with our little piece of the family. It was going as expected until Uncle Casey gave Ellie a photo album full of pictures of the last day we spent with our family. This dredged up memories I had managed to push so far back into my mind that they had long since been forgotten.

After the conversation turned to me it became my turn to delve into the past and reveal a piece of my history no one had been able to get me to talk about, but now it was time.

I had been playing hide and seek in the park with my cousins. Being little more than a toddler, while Peter was a teenager, it was never too hard for him to find me. In that last round I had discovered a grouping of large decorative grass clumps that provided ample coverage for me to hide in. I heard someone walk past my spot and, assuming that it was Peter, I giggled, happy to have not been found so easily as the past rounds. To my horror it wasn't Peter who parted the grass looking into my hiding spot, but a big stranger. I tried to get away from the goon but a second one caught me from behind. They held a cloth over my face and I passed out before I could scream or put up any more of a struggle. The last thing I saw before my vision went dark was a black van followed by a bag as I was shoved into it.

When I regained consciousness I was locked in a dimly lit room. A dirty window up by the ceiling allowed the light in, but the room was cement like a basement and I couldn't open the door, I had no escape route. Soon, one of the goons came into the room while the second blocked the door to prevent me escaping. I was quickly caught and hauled to another room where they chained me to a chair. They threatened to finish off one of my cousins and start on my sister if I didn't stop struggling. Terrified, not knowing who may have been hurt and not wanting any more harm to come to them, I froze and refrained from any further fighting. The boss came in and made me watch a bunch of pictures on a screen, something I later learned to recognize as an Intersect. After they finished I was too tired for them to do anything else with me. Alone again in the first room, I succumbed to my exhaustion curled up in the corner.

Shaking and voices woke me up later. I looked up into the worried, yet relieved, expressions of my parents with more family and friends around in the background. We went to another strange place and my dad ran some tests on the effects that the treatment had had on me. It was discovered that I feared the heights I used to love, and the needles that would be a part of the medical training I had shown an interest in terrified me. I felt fear where I used to feel caution and this was all too much for me so I sought comfort in the presence of my family, retreated into games, and pushed everything to the back of my mind.

When we moved I went along with whatever my parents wanted. We bounced from home to home, changed our names, and eventually settled in California. At that point, I remembered being a Ryder and being around such a big family. As the years past, I was young enough, that the memories faded and I forgot what had happened and who my family had been.

As I finished recounting my story the room was quiet. Sarah, Alex, Ellie, and mom were quietly crying in their own ways. Morgan was the one to break the silence by voicing the obvious question.

"So…what about the bad guy Intersect from this Antagonist?"

Casey grunted and moving a crossed the room pulled out a box from his jacket by the door. Coming back, he gave it to me and I opened it to find glasses just like those that had contained the Intersect in the past. He explained that he knew, since finding Bryce alive, that we were family and when my dad came into the picture they teamed up to make sure we were as safe as possible. The last time Casey had seen my father, my father had given him the box to give me at the right time as well as a drive to give me to investigate the Antagonist Intersect when I was ready.

I put on the glasses and with the quoted phrase "Aces, Charles. Aces." my body went rigid and I could feel the effects of the Antagonist's Intersect being pulled from my brain. After the Intersect was removed, I went with a hunch and said "Charles Carmichael" only to get my father's improved Intersect downloaded into my brain. When that download was finished, Casey and mom filled us in on where the families were now, what was going on in the fight against the Antagonist, the details into Operations Dominoes and Recovery, and what we could do to help.

A phone call to Beckman had Team Bartowski official again, for the duration of these operations at least, and the first assignments started the next day.

The first part of our returning to work included being inundated with all of the information on the Antagonist and all operations combating them. Being the Intersect it fell to me to have the unique method of analyzing the information. My first step was to analyze the Intersect that my dad had removed from my head and look for a system to its function. Once I found how that Intersect worked I had a direction to look into to see how the later Intersect methods had been designed. Next, I took all of the information and put it into an Intersect and uploaded it into my brain with the rest of it. Then, I went to work going through the information by hand and let the computer in my brain work with my mental reasoning to look for the key to the communication network's method of encoding the information into the Intersect. Finally, after a lot of hard work and many sleepless nights I noticed a numerical pattern. I quickly wrote down as much of the sequence as I could find and looking at it I felt the flash coming on. In seconds my mind had broken apart every Intersected piece of information in the entire system. Of course this was way too much and left me unconscious on the floor.

When the rest of the team found me they panicked, revived me, and had a long stream of questions starting with if I was okay and moving onto "what did you find?" I decided it was easiest to show them while I explained and within a short time I had a program ready. After uploading all of the Intersected images I put in the numerical sequence as the key to breaking them back into encrypted messages. We watched as the program broke down one entire piece of the Antagonist's communication network. The first key had been found and was quickly circulated through all divisions.

Casey was called to New York with Caffrey's disappearance and most of the team switched to helping with the search. Meanwhile, I multitasked looking through the information for anything to help find Caffrey, and hoping to find the key to the encryption method. Within a few days Casey texted me a snapshot of a picture. When I looked at the image a flash hit and I relayed the result back to Casey over the phone. As the others helped work through the challenges of planning an international rescue, I continued looking through the information for anything that could be of help. A few more days past and Casey called me in to actively help in New York as well. Caffrey had been dumped in a warehouse and I was to help keep things from getting any worse.

My first stop was to see Caffrey. He looked horrible lying there unconscious, just waiting until he had recovered enough to wake up. His personal doctor had been called in and reassured everyone that he would be as good as new, it was just going to take time for him to recover.

Riding the elevator on my way up to the twenty first floor, where the White Collar team was based, I couldn't help but feel nervous. Here I was heading into an office I had never been in, to work with a bunch of agents who I had never met and who would automatically distrust me, and to be in the presence of my cousin whom I hadn't seen since we were kids playing hide and seek in the park. Peter would have no memory of me, but I would know exactly who he was. I couldn't help but wonder if that was what the Caffrey's felt each time they were around Peter?

When I walked into the office everyone stopped and looked at me. I was unexpected, dressed as a civilian in the same clothes I had been researching in, and I had my luggage in tow. Luckily, Casey was working the first desk by the door and had me integrated into the office in no time. His introduction that I was his associate who had found the information to Caffrey's abductor and that I was now here to help in person, had the room happier to see me. My suitcase was left by his desk and my computer was quickly set up in the conference room. Peter settled in to work with me for a while as he filled me in on everything he had concerning the cases Caffrey had been involved with. The information had already been sent to me and was in the Intersect, but it still helped to get it directly from the source.

Peter was surprised when after only a few hours of working I got a distant look on my face and rushed to Casey's desk with Peter following right behind me. Again, the entire office stopped to watch me as I started laying information out a crossed the desk and babbling at ninety miles an hour. A dirty look from Casey had me taking a breath and starting over. With my audience all ears, I told them about our "Cowboy Boots" who was actually Clint Dawson. Rebecca had become associated with him when he hired her to "take care" of a person or two. On those jobs, secret cameras gathered evidence against her which was used to set her up as another stooge for the Antagonist to manipulate. Following through the information on Dawson I discovered a break that we could use to our advantage. His favorite man to fetch items for him was from the smuggling project and listed as CB with a reputation for getting the job done. The FBI agents were rather pale at how much was stacked against us, and therefore confused by Casey's and my conspiratorial expressions.

Before we could explain, Peter's phone rang making him go even paler. He put the call on speaker and Casey rolled his eyes while I smiled at the voice and the message it relayed. The instructions were to go to central park, Peter was to be seated on a bench with a particular magazine and specific book, the diamond was to be hidden inside of the cut out pages in the book, a random stranger would pick up the book and leave with it, and Peter's part would be complete.

When the call finished, I quickly started relaying orders for Peter to get Mozzie to make a fake diamond that would be passable for the diamond retrieved form the fort. I would be in the park as an innocent bystander, when asked I would pick up the book take it to CB, and the rest was already taken care of.

Peter reacted with angry contempt. How could a plan like that possibly work, how did I know so much so quickly, and all I was going to do was get people killed. The entire office was glaring at me as well and it was obvious that cooperation on this was not going to be easy. Behind me Casey growled at them and all glares turned to him.

"Because we have people on the inside to make sure this will work, what Chuck does is classified way above your pay grades, and avoiding people getting killed is the reason we are here. So how about we work together and get this taken care of so that we can all get back to our lives."

With grumbles and distrusting glances the room began to disperse. I followed Peter up to the conference room where he glared at me as I got settle in to send a coded message to Cole. Looking at Peter, I told him that Casey was my uncle and that our family has been fighting this battle for four generations. Also, contrary to his beliefs, we both would do everything we could to keep Caffrey, the other agents, and him as safe as we could. He was uncertain of the truth of my statement, but chose to be optimistic and believe as he needed something to make things look better than they did.

The next morning the drop off went perfectly. Peter followed the instructions by sitting on the bench with his reading material, as expected Cole called me as the "random stranger" to pick up the book, I delivered it to him by leaving it at another random location, and we all parted ways exactly as would be expected of the situation.

Once everyone was back at the offices the case was done for the moment and the FBI returned to their normal paperwork. Casey and I were given orders to stay put for the time being so I called home and let the others know that I was going to be staying longer than initially planned.

Returning to the hotel where Casey and I would be staying for the duration of our visit I set up a work station at the table. It was difficult to go through Caffrey's belongings but I forced myself to go through everything and see if I flashed. Towards the end I found a necklace hidden in the back corner of the bag that gotten caught on the plastic and hidden amongst the mess. Pulling it out I decided to rinse it off to see what was on it. The flash hit me like a train and once again I ended up unconscious on the floor.

Casey found me when he had switched off with another member of the family to keep an eye on Caffrey. I showed him what I had found and he checked it out while I tended my head ache. After searching the necklace we found that it had a faint inscription in Greek that read κλειδί που ξεκλειδώνει το μυστήριο (the key that unlocks the mystery). The last key had been found, every project had been infiltrated, and we only had the spider who led the entire organization left to nail down. We were finally getting close.

After reporting our findings it was time for sleep, the rest could wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Getting my attention, Casey is giving the signal that we are wanted so it is time to sneak away to Castle and see what kind of adventurous mission we have next.

* * *

I would like to thank those who have reviewed, followed, and those lurkers who continue to read without comment :D

I'm glad that you are all enjoying the story and hope to hear from you as we start the downward turn. This particular story is over halfway done with the climax fast approaching and some interesting reveals to follow (there are some even better parts in the excerpts and prompts to come later) ;)

If there are any questions or missing scenes that you would like filled in, please let me know :D


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**Mysteries and Suspicions**

* * *

I can't believe things have gone this far. With all of the mystery surrounding my friend, it has reached a point that has forced me to converse with the man, to use the resources of big brother to discover the secrets my friend is loath to reveal. Usually, I would simply show my displeasure and try to convince him to share with me, but this talk of him getting hurt as a child and mysterious associations with these CIA and NSA spook suits has me feeling the need to use alternative measures.

This is what brings me to where I am. The bench I chose for my clandestine meeting has easy access to escape routes, a position to see without being seen, and ironically a view of the location where all of this started. As I wait for my collaborator, my mind is wandering over the pieces of Neal's and my history trying to understand what is happening lately.

* * *

I have worked with Caffrey for a long time. When we first met he was successful at conning a con (me) which is a difficult feat to accomplish. Starting a working relationship we targeted a local business man named Vincent Adler. Things didn't go as planned because Neal got romantically involved with Kate and Adler turned out to be a con man himself.

Left with nothing Kate, Neal, and I teamed up and continued to pull cons. Watching the two of them working together was interesting. They alternated between flirtatious and romantic to appearing like a brother and sister pretending to ward off unwanted suitors. Eventually, Neal attempted to con Kate and the relationship ended for a time.

With the world as our oyster Neal and I traveled the globe working. He occasionally left to work his own jobs, as I did also, but we mostly worked together as a team with me behind the scenes while he took lead. (What he has told me of the jobs he pulled without me were mostly untraceable because they were never reported). Over time our jobs got bigger, and as the pay increased so did the risks. Returning to New York we had an international reputation, we each had our own secret cache of valuables, and Kate came into the picture again changing our story.

Following the word of an unreliable street source Neal found Kate, but walked right into an FBI trap. Given a four year sentence Neal went to prison while Kate and I kept in touch. When the time was almost up Kate had a meeting with Neal where she broke up with him again and left. Wanting to know what was going on, Neal requested that I help him to escape and go after her.

After a few short weeks our plan worked and Neal was free again… briefly. In Kate's apartment he found the empty bottle that they used to communicate which had been left behind as a goodbye. While he was still sitting there the Suit found him and he returned to prison with another four year sentence.

On a work release for the FBI Neal was forced to remain within certain limitations. Staying one place for the first time in our acquaintance I was able to better observe my friend. What I found made him a living conspiracy. Watching him go through the same routines I noticed that he sometimes did them with a whole different personality from one day to the next. When we had conversations he would understand a topic one week and not the next. His learning curve was inhuman, he slipped acting a bit too much like a Fed, and to top it off he had unknown relations with the CIA and NSA.

For as much as I thought I knew my friend… sometimes I wasn't so sure.

When Neal was abducted, the NSA got involved with the search and then brought in his "team mate" from the CIA (I mean everyone knows the two agencies don't play nice) there was a lot of speculation as to why the spies were getting involved. Then after Neal's spook suit friends revealed a past connection to him the aura of mystery expanded to include Neal as well. It became a challenge for the rest of us to try and figure out what was going on. We visited him in the hospital, we talked to him while he was home recovering, and he was keenly observed around the office when he returned to work. No one could figure out how he recovered so quickly, or what his past history with the spooks was beyond a game of hide and seek. He was hiding things again, but this time it wasn't some painting he stole that was never reported, it was things involving the government.

I had my theories but none of them filled in all of the gaps. Maybe he was a spy, but why play a con man who consults for the FBI? What if he was an experiment being conducted on some poor kid who was lost in the system and he had some kind of mental programming that had some glitches to be worked out? That would explain some of his changes in interests and personality, but it wouldn't account for him being flawless in his work. Could he be an alien living here in secret learning about our crime and legal systems simultaneously? What good would that do for someone who had the intelligence to traverse the universe, wouldn't they be smart enough to have their own problems worked out? My speculations ran from the mundane that these were just people he knew as a kid but for safety reasons they weren't going into detail on their history to conspiracies of the most odious variety. The Suit felt that the secret history for safety was the best theory. After all, they were secret agents for the government and Neal had been in Wit sec all of his growing up years. That may have worked for Suit, but I was still aware of his little changes and inconsistencies.

It was expected that the spooks would leave once the case concerning the diamond, spies, and Neal's disappearance was closed. Instead, they stuck around and more new faces came into the picture. Ruiz had moved to Chicago for a promotion, and his replacement was a rather young agent from DC named Cade Tanner. His team was brought in to work with the White Collar team and the spooks for a new case, which was a different angle to the last case. The task was to work on catching a forger crew who worked for an organization referred to as the Antagonist. I had heard scared whispers of them on the streets so it was disconcerting that my friend and the FBI team I learned to trust were going to be in the middle of something so dangerous.

The case started out fine with the teams doing research, surveillance stakeouts, and some fringe undercover work. Then things took a turn for the worst when the lead agents started disappearing. First, it was the new guy Tanner from Organized Crime. He left the office headed for home, never made it to his car, and there wasn't a trace of evidence to follow. Twelve hours later he was found in the parking garage with no idea what had happened and a mysterious little slit on the back of his neck like something had been surgically removed. Suit was second when he disappeared from a stake out with Neal. A team of agents came to relieve the pair only to find Neal slumped unconscious in the seat with no memory past "Peter was eating a deviled ham sandwich." Another twelve hour period went by and Suit turned up sleeping in Jr Suit's car with his own mystery little cut. Finally, the disappearance that was the most disturbing was Mrs Suit. She was working late at Burke Premiere Events, since Suit had been working late as well. When Suit arrived home to find the house empty he tried to contact her, with no response the search began again. A nerve racking twelve hours later she was found at her latest event location when Yvonne went to set up. Like the other two, she had a little cut on the back of her neck and no memory what so ever. In depth investigations were opened up to see if the Antagonist had anything to do with the abductions, but nothing connected.

It seemed that there was another angle to look at the situation, so Missing Persons was brought in to help. Agent J R, or Joe as he insisted on, was the new lead agent of the department. He voluntarily spent long hours asking questions and doing research into what could possibly link the three together on another level, besides the current case. With enough information to write their biographies he started secluding himself in his office working diligently. Leaving that problem in his hands the victims took precautions and went back to work.

While everything was going on Neal seemed rather stoic. I had expected him to go ballistic when Peter and Elizabeth were taken, instead, his focus waited until they were returned before he became super protective. This included his insistence that no one talked about the little cuts or mysterious disappearances with anyone outside of the office, when questioned why not, he simply stated that he "had a funny feeling about this." On top of his strange emotional behavior. His secret meetings with the spooks grew in frequency, I noticed his computer at his apartment being open to chat sites all in a strange code, and he reacted odd around the new agents too. With the younger Tanner he was like the watchful big brother, and he often had lunch with Joe which was "just checking to see if he had any updates." Concerned I decided to do some digging of my own.

Looking into the new agent's backgrounds there was nothing odd about Tanner. Joe on the other hand had been following Tanner's career from the beginning. When Tanner moved, it was less than a week and Joe was right behind him. Having no explanation for this I moved on to the histories of the spooks. Casey had a sudden appearance in a Special Black Ops team in 1989. From there he advanced in the Marines, joined the NSA, and worked in Operations Bartowski and Dominoes. Most of his file was blacked out but I was able to get ahold of enough information to know that he was dangerous and involved in some very big secrets. Next I looked into this Chuck spook. His file was the least informative but I did get that he started as an asset, worked up to an analyst, and eventually chose to become an Agent. For some reason he was given the title Special Agent and given command of an Operation Intersect (Intersect what? Humans and Computers? Humans and Aliens?). He had been out of the agency but recently rejoined to participate in an Operation Dominoes. My research gained more information which coincided with more questions. So I changed my tactics. Finally, I switched to look a little more in depth into the Antagonist. I started by quietly spreading the word that I was curious who they were. Typically this would be no big deal, but apparently this organization wasn't typical.

At first there was this eerie feeling, like I was being watched. I began to take precautions and realized I had a tail. Ducking into an alley to change my direction and lose them, I was dismayed to find myself surrounded. The leader of the group announced that he was associated with the Antagonist and that this was their way of warning others that it was best not to snoop into other people's business. To buy myself some time to think up a possible escape, I asked "What was the warning?" He laughed, and raising his gun, he smirked "Your death." Before he could pull the trigger, the Chuck spook swung into the goons on one side of the alley, while another spook flipped off of the fire escape and landed into the ones on the other side. In mere moments they had flipped, kicked, hit, jumped, ducked, and spun into victory taking all of the bad guys down without firing off a single shot.

As I stood, briefly immobilized by the shock of how quickly and efficiently they fought, Chuck introduced the reason for them following me. Neal had been keeping tabs on me noticing my distance and concerns of late. When he heard about my looking into the Antagonist he requested I be followed and protected. Not happy with this revelation I turned my focus to see who else had been monitoring me against my wishes. To say the least what I saw came as quite a surprise. His appearance was very similar to Neal's with only the difference of the hair being slightly lighter and a little curlier, his eyes had a more aqua tint to the blue, and his face was slightly different in its shape. With a grin this new spook introduced himself as Zach and said that he was Neal's cousin, then he added "of sorts" with a shrug. Uncertain what to think, I decided it was best to verify with Neal, so with the spooks trailing in the shadows I headed for June's.

Following the usual track of late Neal didn't give me much. He simply stated that yes he had his family and friends watching me, no I wouldn't get to know details yet, yes he would tell me when he could, he ordered me to stay in a safe house allowing the spooks/suits to protect me, and he promised that after four generations of fighting this was about to be over. When I questioned him on how he knew, he told me that the organization had been infiltrated on every level. With his abduction he was inadvertently introduced to the leader and now there was nothing left to stop the bust, it was simply a matter of completing the plans and putting them into action.

* * *

A loud sigh and rustling noises accompany the person sitting on the bench behind me. He has his paper open and held up as the signal. Still, I verify with the code phrase and he grudgingly responds accordingly.

The Suit isn't happy with the situation either, but as he too is concerned and sees no other recourse, he also is reduced to secret meetings and exchanges of information on our mutual and mysterious friend. Peter starts off the conversation by detailing the office situations and I follow with the situations that have been occurring off of the clock. We discuss and compare what we have seen and heard trying to find some answers. After we have shared everything we share a look of concern. Something is very wrong here, but neither of us can put a finger on it. With no answers and more questions all we can do is go our separate ways to keep trying and hope something works to clear the mystery.

* * *

For those who may have been watching for me too post, I'm sorry that I almost forgot that today was Sunday and my day to post. Things have been busy and I am on a time clock due to upcoming vacation.

A heads up. I leave on vacation this week for a week and a half. This means that next Sunday's post will be up this Wednesday night instead of on Sunday, and the following Sunday's post might be a little late depending on how my return goes. I have a new phone with less glitches so internet access won't be steady, but if anyone reviews or PMs me, I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

**Recovery: Removing The Handler's Leverage**

* * *

Speaker: Agent Elizabeth Ryder, MD

Location: Undisclosed Safe House

Activity: Waiting, the same as I have been doing for twenty three years.

My youngest son is William Cade Ryder. He was abducted when he was three years old, put through an Intersect to forget his real identity, and a chip was placed in his neck to ensure that if any of the agents connected to our family ever got to close to threatening the Antagonist then Will would be killed via remote control. In addition to waiting for my son's safe return there is also my niece, and name sake, Elizabeth Brennan and her husband, my nephew on the other side, Ryan Peter Ryder who have also been held as leverage against us.

Each time one of these three were taken my older son Nicholas was left severely injured, near death. Then after becoming old enough to find themselves involved with various government and law enforcement agencies, all of my remaining children have been working to bring their brother and cousins home following the lead of Nicholas' driven efforts to right his perceived failures to protect. Finally, after two generations of work we were close enough to the end to bring in the handlers and remove the leverage altogether.

* * *

Common points of the three cases:

Organization: антагонист (AKA: Antagonist)

Project: Детский плечо (AKA: Leverage)

Purpose: Provide Leverage by Threatening Children

Lead Operation: Recovery

Director of Operations: Nick Ryder (AKA: Shield)

Lead Agent in charge: Joseph Ryder (AKA: JR/Joe)

Agency Affiliation: FBI (Missing Persons)

* * *

Case 1:

Handlers: Logan and Lauren Tanner

Report Summary:

Handler team number one comprised of Logan and Lauren Tanner. They had abducted William Cade Ryder and renamed him Cade Tanner. Cade had grown up in the DC area, was an academic scholar well ahead of his years, and was very good at soccer in school. He graduated with an advanced law degree at the age of fourteen, worked for a high profile law firm for six years, left to begin consulting in law enforcement for three years, and joined the FBI as soon as he turned twenty three. There he quickly rose through the ranks and landed the role of the head agent for Organized Crimes in New York.

Mr. and Mrs. Tanner had not been pleased to have their "little boy" go into law yet alone into law enforcement. The fear was that he might stumble into things hidden in their pasts, like their previous identities with rap sheets a mile long, or there more recent criminal endeavors. Taking advantage of the past crimes, not linked to what they did to William, an arrest was arranged while William was left safely disconnected to the take downs.

The raid was set to begin at seven hundred hours and was organized by Agent Joseph Ryder of the New York Missing Persons division while being conducted by a team based out of the Washington DC office. Everything went according to plan and the arrests went down on pocket warrants without a hitch.

* * *

Case 2:

Handlers: Dr. Alan and Tina Mitchell

Report Summary:

The second team of handlers was Dr. Alan and Tina Mitchell. They had been pseudo parents to Elizabeth Anne Brennan and renamed her Elizabeth Mitchell after her past had been suppressed, replaced via an Intersect, and the control chip was placed in her neck. Elizabeth was raised to be a classic woman in downtown Boston. She grew to love pottery making, dancing, Nancy Drew mysteries, Orleander-scented candles, old jazz, and showed a particular love of Italian with the exception of anchovies. Entering the career world she chose to continue with her preference to the classical and sophisticated by entering into art. She worked for an assortment of galleries, and after one of the galleries had been robbed she met her future husband, the investigating Special Agent Peter Burke. As their relationship flourished she progressed to own Burke Premiere Events and eventually picked up consulting for the Dearmitt Gallery as well.

Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell were rather pleased with the pseudo children. Elizabeth had been abducted by associates of the Antagonist while her sister had been abducted by the Mitchell's themselves. Both girls had been programmed to believe that they were really sisters and tended to overlook any differences as being things that made them unique. Elizabeth was being held as leverage to protect the Mitchell's associates while her sister was simply taken as their desire for a family. There was concern when Elizabeth married an FBI agent, but as Peter hadn't looked too deeply into the family history he never realized what was right in front of him so eventually the problem took a back seat.

Raid two against the handlers was also initiated at seven hundred hours and arranged by Joseph Ryder, however, this raid was handled by the Boston FBI office. The arrest was based on the old abduction of Elizabeth's sister and the continued efforts to ensure that she never realized the truth of her identity. This ensured that the arrest went down, but the Antagonist and any allies would be more inclined to leave Elizabeth alone after the dust had settled.

* * *

Case 3:

Handlers: Mason and Hannah Burke

Report Summary:

Simultaneous with the other two raids against the handlers was the raid for Mason and Hannah Burke. After Ryan Peter Ryder had been abducted, programmed with an Intersect, and the chip implanted he was handed over to his new parents. There he was renamed Peter Burke and raised an only child in northern New York. He grew up living a normal life of Eagle Scouts, baseball with the local kids, and a seemingly strong family environment full of fond memories. His strong inclination for math and baseball led him to college on a math scholarship where he earned a CBA only to follow it up with a brief stint as a professional player for the Twins team. An injury cut his career short and, despite being offered many professional positions in the math world, he instead turned to the FBI for his career choice. Working his way through the ranks and departments he eventually settle in the Manhattan office working in the White Collar division where he became the lead agent. Peter gained the nickname of the Archeologist because he always dug for the truth, and he earned the status of legendary because he was able to catch the most elusive White Collar criminal of his time not only once, but three times.

For the Burkes, Peter was a bit of a challenge at times because, despite the efforts to suppress his personality, Peter had still shown through. His no nonsense, justice oriented, by the book, earning what he wants via perseverance and hard work ways didn't really work so well with their way of going about life. They were left with the challenge of raising the boy who was all about doing the right thing and letting the pieces fall where they would, while they themselves had to hide their criminal activities from him. There was the perk that the efforts to erase his memory had been successful between the head injury that knocked him out, and the Intersect, so he was not suspicious to look deeper into his past or what was going on around him.

Taking advantage of the ongoing crimes that the Burkes had been involved in the warrants were focused on their alternative activities while leaving Peter safely disconnected. Starting at seven hundred hours Agent Ryder coordinated the arrest while the Albany office carried it out.

* * *

Reading over the reports, the three raids were carried out in sync removing the leverage and clearing the way for the remaining projects to be taken down as well.

I am proud that my oldest son Joseph has been able to successfully complete the operation that his brother Nicholas started. Combining their efforts the lost ones are now safe, and free to learn the truth. It is now only a matter of breaking it to them gently and bringing back into the family environment that has been missing them for so long.

* * *

We are up to the case chapters. There are four chapters like this. The first is this chapter with the handlers going down, the next two are the main groups of the Antagonist, and the last case chapter is where the leader goes down. Then we have three chapters to wind down the plot and have the reveal of a secret that I look forward to your thoughts on :D

As promised, I am posting early this week. I leave on a trip tomorrow night and will be traveling to and then through the NE USA. When I get back, I plan on posting that night (Sunday) if I can, and if there is too much going on I plan on posting Monday night at the latest.

I hope you all will let me know what you think, leave a comment, or make a request and give me something to read on the long road trip :D


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